


the boy with the thorn in his side

by connorswhisk



Series: losers/lovers [3]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Character Study, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, oooooh man this was fun to write but i am so sad, seriously, so much, tw for sonia and myra because honestly they deserve their own warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-26 10:00:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20928368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/connorswhisk/pseuds/connorswhisk
Summary: ~~Eddie Kaspbrak is Derry-born and Derry-raised. He’s never lived anywhere else. He doesn’t plan to (though he’s only four, so what does he know). He’ll live here for the rest of his life.That’s what Dad says, and Eddie always agrees with what Dad says. “I’m a Derry citizen through and through, Ed,” he says to Eddie, grinning, crouched in front of him with a hand on his shoulder. “So’s your mom. And so are you.”~~





	the boy with the thorn in his side

**Author's Note:**

> ahahaha i love this little funky gay boy!! so much
> 
> title taken from the boy with the thorn in his side by the smiths

Eddie Kaspbrak is Derry-born and Derry-raised. He’s never lived anywhere else. He doesn’t plan to (though he’s only four, so what does he know). He’ll live here for the rest of his life.

That’s what Dad says, and Eddie always agrees with what Dad says. “I’m a Derry citizen through and through, Ed,” he says to Eddie, grinning, crouched in front of him with a hand on his shoulder. “So’s your mom. And so are you.” He pokes Eddie’s chest for emphasis and Eddie giggles.

“I’ve lived here. I’ll die here. And that’s just the way things are going to be.” And he hoists Eddie up onto his shoulders, growling and rocking his body back and forth. Eddie shrieks with glee and laughs as he’s swept every which way, but never too violently, because Dad won’t hurt him.

“Frank, be _careful_,” Mommy says, but the corners of her mouth twitch up. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Aw, I’m not going to hurt him, dear,” Dad says, though he stops anyway. “We’re just having some good fun, aren’t we, Ed?”

Eddie nods. “Yeah!”

“Yeah, we are. Now, hop on down, kiddo. Go wash up for dinner.” Eddie slides off his shoulders and goes racing off to the kitchen sink, jumping up on the little step stool ‘cause he isn’t tall enough to reach the taps. When he’s done, he helps Mommy set the table, and they sit and eat, talking about Eddie’s day at primary school, and if he thinks he’s ready for kindergarten. Afterwards, Dad takes Eddie out in the yard and they play a game of hide-and-seek, while Mommy watches from her seat on the porch and sips her wine, smiling.

That’s how the first four-and-a-half years of Eddie’s life go. And then they don’t.

Dad gets sick. He has to go to the doctor a lot, and every night Eddie can hear his mother crying in the living room while Dad tries to console her. They think Eddie’s asleep, and he’s supposed to be, but the way Mommy sounds when she cries...it doesn’t make Eddie feel good. It keeps him awake.

Within a few months, Dad moves into the Derry General Hospital. Eddie goes to see him, but he doesn’t like to, because the hospital frightens him. It smells funny, there are a lot of scary men in white coats walking around, and every time Eddie and Mommy go there, he always sees people crying.

The people are crying because they’ve lost someone, and Eddie starts to get scared that _he’s_ going to lose someone, and then somebody else will walk into this hospital and see Eddie crying like everyone else and think, _Gee, what a sorry little kid._

Dad doesn’t have hair anymore. He takes a lot of medicine, and his hair falls out, and it looks wrong on him. Eddie thinks he looks weird without hair. And even though he smiles every time they come to visit him, Dad always looks so tired. There’s dark shapes under his eyes, and he coughs a lot, and sometimes (more often than not) they have to leave him, and a doctor has to come in and check on him. He’s hooked up to this big machine that looks like something out of Star Trek, and it beeps every time Dad’s heart beats.

Eddie loves his dad, but he hates going to see him.

The last time Eddie sees Dad is Christmas break, 1980. Mommy takes him in to see him on Christmas Eve, and Dad looks worse than ever. Mommy looks terrible too, not at all happy that it’s the holidays.

“I’m going to get a drink,” she says shakily, getting out of her chair, and she shuts the door behind her once she’s gone.

Eddie stares down at his feet. He wonders when they can leave.

“Ed,” Dad says. Eddie looks up. Dad motions for him to come closer, so he scoots his chair up. Dad holds his hand, which is something he’s never done before, and he looks so, so _tired, _and Eddie starts to get this feeling that something is wrong.

“Ed,” Dad says, but it sounds like a whisper, because he’s so weak. “Come here,” so Eddie rests his head on Dad’s chest, listening to the slow heart that beats there.

“You’re going to do great in kindergarten,” he says, and Eddie frowns, because kindergarten is a long way away. Why is he talking about it now?

“Maybe,” Eddie mumbles, anyway. “I don’t know if I’ll make any friends, though.”

Dad chuckles a little, but then it turns into a coughing fit. Eddie quickly moves off of him and hands him the glass of water from the table next to him.

“You’ll make friends,” Dad rasps, once he’s had enough water and the coughing has subsided. “You’re a good kid, Ed. People are gonna love ya.”

Eddie smiles. “Thanks, Dad.”

“Eddie, I want you to know something.” Eddie leans closer, curious.

“Me, I ran out of time. I could’ve gotten out of this town, could’ve taken your mother and moved to Chicago, or Seattle. Somewhere far from here. But I didn’t, even though I had many chances to, and I don’t want you to end up the same way. Get out of here if you can, Ed. I think it’ll be better for you. Go to school. Make some friends. Find a girl, settle down. But don’t settle here. I imagine you’d be happier if you didn’t.”

Eddie doesn’t totally understand what he’s saying, but he nods. “Ok, Dad. But you’re not out of time, right?”

Dad smiles, but his eyes look pained. “Sure I’m not,” he says. “And Ed?”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“Don’t ever change. There’ll be people who don’t like the way you are, but you just don’t pay attention to them, ok? They’re wrong. Be yourself. Don’t be something for someone else.”

“Ok, Dad. I love you,” Eddie says, squeezing his hand gently.

“I love you, too, kiddo,” Dad says, smiling sadly, and then Mommy comes back, and she takes Eddie home, and they eat a quiet Christmas Eve dinner and go to sleep.

And the next day, the hospital calls to say that Dad is gone.

Eddie never forgets what his father had last said to him. Mommy cries, and so doesEddie, God, he cries so much. Dad was the one person who always made him smile. He was Eddie’s best friend, and Eddie cries all the time now that he’s gone, but he also remembers Dad’s last words to him. And he makes a promise to himself, a promise he’s dead serious about, even at the age of five.

He’s going to leave Derry, someday, and he’s never going to come back.

Mommy changes once Dad dies.

She doesn’t let Eddie get away with the same stuff that he used to. She no longer smiles when he tells a joke, just grimaces and tells him to get back to whatever he was doing. When Eddie comes inside from a long day of playing around in the backyard, Mommy doesn’t playfully smile and roll her eyes, ask him what he did. Instead, she scolds him for all the dirt stains on his pants, and frantically asks him if he got bitten by any mosquitoes while he was out there, because mosquitoes carry deadly viruses. Eddie pales and tells her he hasn’t, but the next time he gets a bug bite, he’s terrified that he’ll have to go the hospital, just like Dad did.

Mommy always makes sure the house is clean. She gives Eddie tons of huge, multi-colored pills to swallow, one at breakfast, one after lunch, and one before he goes to bed. They’re tricky to get down at first, but Eddie quickly gets the hang of it, because he knows if he can’t do it, he’ll get really sick.

One month before Eddie starts kindergarten, Mommy drags him off to a doctor to get a ton of tests run on him, and they have to stick him with lots of sharp needles to check his blood, which really hurts. When they finally finish, the doctor says that nothing is wrong with Eddie, nothing at all.

“What?” Mommy says, glaring. “There must be something, I’m sure of it. No boy has _nothing _wrong with him.”

“Mrs. Kaspbrak, we’ve run all of our tests. Eddie seems to have no major allergies, and everything seems to be in working order. He’s a fine, healthy boy,” the doctor says, and Eddie feels a wave of relief. He’d been scared something was wrong with him.

“That’s not true, and you know it,” Mommy hisses, voice rising in volume. “Look at him. He’s so..._small._ He could have asthma, or something, did you check for asthma? I don’t think you did. You should check him for asthma.”

The doctor sighs. “Mrs. Kaspbrak, will you leave if we can find something wrong with your son?”

Mommy nods furiously. “Yes. I won’t step _one foot _out of this office until you tell me what’s wrong with my Eddie-bear.”

So a nurse comes in and checks Eddie’s breathing, making sure everything is alright. Eddie does what she says, but he feels _fine_. He doesn’t _think _he has asthma, and when he runs around outside, he can breathe ok. Well, most of the time. _Sometimes_ it can be a little difficult, but that doesn’t mean anything, right? Sure, Eddie gets winded, _everyone _gets winded, but what if that’s really asthma and he didn’t know?

Eddie doesn’t feel so fine anymore.

“Well, wouldn’t you know it,” the doctor says. “He _does _have asthma.”

Eddie promptly bursts into tears.

“I told you!” Mommy shouts triumphantly, pointing an accusatory finger at the man. “_You _didn’t believe me!” The doctor simply shrugs, but once Mommy turns around, he rolls his eyes.

“Eddie-bear, sweetie, it’s ok,” Mommy says soothingly, rubbing his shoulder. “We’ll get you an inhaler, and you’ll carry it around with you wherever you go in case you need it, alright?”

Eddie nods.

“Good,” she says. “Now, stop crying. You’re going to get snot everywhere, and that’s not sanitary.”

So, Eddie gets his inhaler from Mr. Keene at the drugstore, and he takes it everywhere like Mommy says. He uses it anytime he gets even a little out of breath, because he’s so, so scared of having an asthma attack that he doesn’t want to risk it. He starts to use it even when he doesn’t need it, like when he’s nervous or afraid. Something about its bitter, slightly sour taste comforts him.

Eddie’s still using his inhaler when he starts kindergarten (Mommy says she wishes he didn’t have to go, she’ll be worrying about him all day that he’s gone), and just like his Dad had told him he would, he makes some friends.

Eddie’s never really had friends before, so when he finds himself talking to William Denbrough on the swing-set on the first day of school, he has no idea _why_. His original plan had been to wait until someone wanted to make friends with _him. _But Bill had captivated him, even from the start. There’s just something about him that Eddie admires so much, and he thinks if he weren’t friends with him, he would feel pretty lost. Even though Bill gets laughed at for his stutter all the time, Eddie barely notices it’s there. So when he introduces himself on the first day, he doesn’t totally understand why, but he’s glad he does.

Bill is Eddie’s best friend. Maybe he shouldn’t be saying that about the first friend he’s ever had, but it’s _true._ Bill is just...he’s the best. He’s nice, and he’s really smart, and he always shares some of his lunch with Eddie if Eddie gets bored of his mom’s boring old fruits and vegetables that she packs for him. Bill is cool, and funny, and great, and Eddie does whatever he does, even if he knows Mommy wouldn’t approve. Bill’s just awesome like that.

And Mommy likes him, too. Eddie had told her all about Bill after he got home from his first day, had talked about how he was nice and made Eddie laugh. Mommy had seemed skeptical at first, but then Eddie had taken Bill home for a playdate and Mommy had been nice to him, even though she still wasn’t sure if he was responsible, even though she got impatient with his stutter.

Eddie’s glad he’s met Bill, and somehow he knows they’ll be friends for a really, really long time.

But when Bill says they should make friends with Stanley Uris and Richie Tozier,Eddie isn’t sure.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Stanley. Stanley’s fine. Eddie thinks that if they were friends, they’d get along well, because Stanley seems to be a cautious person who worries, and Eddie is a cautious person who worries, too. Yeah, he has no problems with being Stanley’s friend.

But Richie Tozier...ugh. He’s just so _loud,_ and _obnoxious, _and _reckless,_ and he thinks he’s _soooo _funny, even though his jokes aren’t that good. Pretending to eat the worms wriggling around in the mud on the playground isn’t _funny_, it’s just _gross_, and Eddie doesn’t think he really wants to be friends with somebody who does that sort of stuff. He can’t really understand how Stanley tolerates Richie, seeing as his shirts are clean and his shorts are always pressed and free of wrinkles, but somehow, they’re best friends. Even though Richie is constantly getting in trouble with the teacher for goofing off in class, and he’s always getting dirt all over his pants and marker on his hands. Eddie doesn’t do that, and he thinks that he and Richie are just too different from each other to be friends. Plus, Mommy would _hate _Richie. A lot.

But, with Bill’s encouragement, he actually talks to Stanley and Richie. Stan is pretty much what Eddie’d thought, though sometimes really funny when you least expect it, and careful about things (Mommy would like him, Eddie thinks, because he’s clean). The pair of them click pretty fast, and Bill and Stan get along well.

And Richie...

Richie and Eddie work together in a way Eddie hadn’t thought possible.

It’s weird. Richie’s the same as he was before. Nothing changes about him when he and Eddie become friends. But now that he’s actually hanging out with him, Eddie finds that Richie is...actually tolerable to be around? Sure, a lot of his jokes aren’t that great, and, sure, he’s dirty and disgusting all the time, and, sure, Richie and Eddie will bicker with each other over the smallest things. But Richie can actually be really funny sometimes, making Eddie double over and shriek with laughter to the point where people start staring at them, and even though he’s gross, he’s not so bad that Eddie doesn’t want to be his friend, and even when they’re fighting, they never really mean it.

He’s right about one thing. Mommy does _not _like Richie. She glares at him every time he comes by to play with Eddie or get him for a bike ride, and once he’s gone, she grumbles a lot about how _some parents just can’t keep their child under control like I can, Eddie-bear. You know you don’t have to hang out with that boy if you don’t want to._ But he _does _want to.

Eddie finds that he _likes _Richie. He looks forward to seeing him every day. He looks forward to seeing Bill and Stanley, too, but that’s different. They’re his best friends, for sure, but they don’t make Eddie feel how he does around Richie, where he’s always on the edge, waiting to see what will happen next, and they certainly can’t make Eddie laugh like Richie can.

And Richie gives him fun nicknames, which Bill and Stan don’t really do, and Eddie likes it. He _likes _it when Richie calls him “Eds,” ‘cause it’s like a secret identity. No one else calls him that. Eddie knows that people only give people fun nicknames if they love them. Dad used to call him Ed, and Mommy and Dad would call each other “honey” and “dear,” and Mommy calls Eddie Eddie-bear. Dad loved him, and Mommy loves him, and Mommy and Dad loved each other. So nicknames are a good thing, and when Richie calls him by one, Eddie knows that that means Richie loves him, and that he’s his friend.

“Hey, Eds,” Richie says, sitting in the swing next to Eddie. Bill and Stan are over by the water fountain, talking about the new movie out at the Aladdin, _Indiana Jones, _which Eddie wants to see, but isn’t sure if his mom will let him. “What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?”

Eddie shrugs. “Nothing special,” he says, trailing his sneakers in the dust beneath his feet. “Just waiting for my mom to pick me up, ‘cause I gotta go to the dentist. That’s why I didn’t ride my bike in this morning.”

“Ah,” Richie says sagely. “Keep those pearly whites in line.” He shifts into a terrible accent. “Gotta keep those teeth clean, laddie! Mighty important!”

Eddie wrinkles his nose. “What is _that _supposed to be?”

“An Irish guy.”

“It doesn’t _sound _like an Irish guy.”

“Your _mom_ doesn’t sound like an Irish guy.”

“What does that even _mean_?”

“Dunno,” Richie says, grinning, and he pulls Eddie into a headlock, driving his knuckles into the top of his head. “There you go, Eddie Spaghetti, you’ll be all ready for your appointment now, and when you walk down the street, all the fine ladies’s heads will turn.”

Eddie pushes him off and combs his fingers through his now mussed hair, grumbling. “Sure they will.”

“They will!” Richie chirps. “And they’ll all whistle at you, and I’ll say, ‘I know he’s cute, girls, but he’s alllll mine!’” He reaches out and pinches Eddie’s cheek. “‘Cause you are, Eddie! Cute, cute, _cute_!”

“Shut _up_,” Eddie mumbles, but he’s smiling, and his face feels hot. He doesn’t know why. Richie grins back, and it’s a nice moment, a good moment, and Eddie feels happy.

A sudden honk of a car horn makes them both jump.

“Eddie-bear!” Mommy yells loudly, and Eddie groans internally as everyone looks in her direction. “Come on!”

“Guess I’d better go,” Eddie says, standing up. Bill and Stan wave at him from where they’ve been loitering at the fountain, and Eddie waves back.

Richie hugs him. “Have fun getting your teeth pulled.”

“Haha, very funny.” But he smiles anyway.

And just as Eddie’s walking out of the recess yard, Richie shouts, “See ya later, Eds!”

“See ya, Rich!” Eddie yells back.

“Why were you hugging him?” Mommy asks sharply once Eddie’s buckled into the backseat.

Eddie’s confused. “He’s my friend. I love him.”

“You _don’t _love him, Eddie. Boys don’t love other boys. _Friends_ who are both boys don’t _hug_,” Mommy says, disgust lacing her tone. “It’s not right.”

Eddie frowns. “But...why not?”

“Because,” she snaps. “It just isn’t. It’s unnatural. Don’t hug him anymore. _Understand me, Eddie-bear?_”

“Yes, Mommy,” Eddie says, but he’s never understood anything less.

The whole time Eddie is in the chair at the dentist’s office (while his mother screeches about cavities and gingivitis), he thinks about what Mommy had told him. Why isn’t he allowed to hug Richie? Is it because Mommy doesn’t like him? Would she be mad if he hugged Bill or Stan? Eddie thinks she would, but he still doesn’t quite get it.

_Still_, he thinks on the ride home, running his tongue over his teeth and grimacing at the newly-applied fluoride, _she’d said it wasn’t right to hug Richie like that. Maybe she thought I was hugging Richie like he was a girl, but I wasn’t. He’s my friend._

_But, maybe it _is _wrong. Mommy’s usually right about things. She’d been right about my asthma, so she could be right about this. Should I stop hugging Richie? Bill? Stanley?_

_Well, no. I won’t stop, because that’s not fair. I just won’t do it in front of her._

_It’s fine._

_I‘m not wrong. I‘m not _unnatural.

But the next day, when Richie comes running at him with a “Hiya, Eds! How was the ol’ tooth doctor?” Eddie thinks of what his mother had told him.

“Don’t call me Eds,” he snaps suddenly, and Richie blinks, eyes big. “I hate it when you call me that.”

Richie frowns. For a brief moment, Eddie thinks he sees hurt in his eyes, but he must have imagined it because Richie smiles and says:

“Aw, Eds, you know I won’t stop.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, and Richie giggles, but from then on, Eddie always tells Richie not to call him Eds, or Eddie Spaghetti, or Eduardo, or anything like that. He wishes he didn’t have to. He likes the names. He likes it when Richie calls him those things. But Mommy had said that boys don’t love other boys.

If boys don’t love other boys, then Richie shouldn’t call Eddie dumb nicknames.

But he does, and Eddie doesn’t always correct him.

At twelve, Eddie starts to realize he’s different from his friends, and it terrifies him.

He’s always been different, obviously. He has asthma, and allergies, and he can’t run for very long. But that’s not what makes Eddie _truly _different.

By the time they start middle school, the other boys start talking about girls. Boys in class start talking about tits, and the porn mags they nick from their older brothers, and which girls at school are the hottest, and how you can always go to Beverly Marsh if you need some relief, because she’ll do anything for free.

_(Stay away from that dirty Marsh girl, Eddie. _Mommy warns. _She’s nothing but trouble.)_

Even Bill and Stan and Richie talk about girls. Bill, who had his first kiss with the aforementioned “dirty Marsh girl” at age nine, seems to still be holding out for her, gazing after her head of red curls every time she passes them in the halls. He says that all the rumors are bullshit.

“They’re n-not true,” he says. “And they never w-w-will b-be.”

Stanley doesn’t talk about girls a lot, but a few times he’s remarked that he thinks Sarah Cohen is cute, though usually not much more than that. Stan’s pretty reserved, and mostly keeps to himself about that sort of stuff.

“I don’t really want a girlfriend right now,” Stan says, shrugging. “I don’t think I’m ready for one.”

“Aw, come on, Stan the Man,” Richie teases. “No hotties for you?”

“No,” Stan grumbles, and swats Richie’s hand away from where it’s tugging at his curls.

Richie is anything but reserved. He won’t shut up about girls, and it’s getting really tiring for Eddie to listen to him groan on and on about how bad he wants to feel a pair of boobs, and how he wishes he could feel Eddie’s mom’s, but she’s a prude and won’t let him.

“Beep-fucking-beep,” Eddie says. “That’s so _gross._”

“Oh, poor lil Eds. Don’t want me as your daddy?” He sticks his tongue out and pulls a grotesque face.

“_No_,” Eddie says, grinning. “And don’t fucking call me that.”

“Your mom likes it when I call her that,” Richie says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“No, she doesn’t,” Eddie says, but he’s fighting off giggles. “That doesn’t even make _sense, _Trashmouth.”

“Nope,” Richie says, popping the “p.” “But you love it anyway, Spaghetti.”

The problem is that Eddie’s not feeling the same way as his friends. He tries looking at girls in class, thinking that maybe if he looks at one long enough, a crush will magically appear. But nothing happens, and the girls start giving him weird looks for staring at them.

He doesn’t get it. Why can’t he like girls the same way all the other boys can? All the movie stars that the others think are hot are pretty to Eddie, sure, but he can’t see himself kissing them or...doing anything else with them. And none of the girls at school are all that cute, not really. Why is he so different? It’s _frustrating_, and Eddie can’t understand why nothing happens when he thinks about making out with Molly Ringwald, or whoever.

And then, when Eddie turns thirteen, Richie gets him an album for his record player for his birthday, and a lot of terrible, terrible things shift into place.

It’s a familiar cover, and Eddie’s seen it before, but never really listened to it, and never looked at it this close.

“What the hell?” Eddie asks. “Why did you get me a Wham! album?”

“Happy birthday,” Richie says, grinning. “Hope you like it. Saw it in the store and thought of you, Eduardo, ‘cause of how fuckin’ short their shorts are, just like yours.”

“Beep-beep, Rich,” Eddie says, but he’s staring down at the inside flap of the sleeve. Those shorts _are _short.

“Wanna listen to it?” he asks, ‘cause Stan and Bill have gone home, and Richie had wanted to give Eddie his present “in private” for some reason.

Richie shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”

So Eddie pops the record on the player and they sit on Eddie’s bed, listening to it, and then Richie pulls Eddie to his feet and starts whirling him around the room, singing along terribly to the track, and Eddie’s laughing, and Richie’s laughing too, and Eddie feels kinda dizzy and light-headed for no reason, and it’s a lot of fun, even if Eddie’s mom wouldn’t approve.

_“Wake me up, before you go-go,_” Richie croons, getting up in Eddie’s personal space. “_Don’t leave me hangin’ on like a yo-yo._”

“Jesus, Richie,” Eddie laughs. “When was the last time you brushed your teeth? Your breath smells like shit.”

“Doesn’t smell as bad as your Mom’s underwear.”

“_Gross.”_

“Ha.”

Later, when Richie leaves, Eddie’s head is still swimming, and he flops down on his bed, feeling giddy. He can’t stop smiling, which is kind of weird, but it’s probably just ‘cause Richie was pretty funny when he was singing to the record, and ‘cause Eddie has three best friends who he would seriously die for.

Eventually, Eddie drifts off to sleep. In his dream, George Michael is there, and he’s dressed in the same clothes as he is on the inside flap of _Make It Big._ Shorts and earring and styled hair and all. And he smiles at Eddie, and Eddie smiles back, because that album had been pretty good, and even if Richie really _had _gotten him the album as a joke, Eddie had genuinely enjoyed listening to it. But then George Michael is getting closer to him, and he’s staring at Eddie in a way that Eddie doesn’t know _how _to feel about, all hooded eyes and dark pupils, and his shorts are really, _really _short and -

Eddie wakes up, heart pounding, face red.

And then he notices the mess in his underwear.

Shit.

“_Shit!_” he says out loud, because this is really bad.

Eddie can’t be gay. He can’t be. He’s _not. _Because if he were, Mommy would hate him. She’d be disgusted. And so would Bill, and so would Stanley, and so would _Richie,_ and Eddie wouldn’t be able to take that.

And he knows how gay people get treated in this town. Hell, he’s not even gay and Henry Bowers still shoves him around and calls him _fag _and _queer._ If Eddie were gay, he’d be facing that times ten.

God, this can’t be happening. It can’t be happening.

Eddie can hear his mother’s voice: _Boys don’t love other boys. It’s unnatural._

_It’s not. It’s not happening. That dream was just a fluke. I’m just tired from messing around with my friends all day, and that’s just my brain playing a practical joke on me. Haha, brain, very funny. Now, quit it._

But while that’s the first wet dream Eddie has about a boy, it isn’t the last. And he _never _dreams about girls.

It makes him sick to think it, but,

If Eddie were gay, it would explain a lot of things.

But that’s just an _if._ Because Eddie isn’t.

He isn’t gay.

But, oh God, he _is._

Thirteen. And Eddie’s still asthmatic. He’s still picky about the way things are done, he’s still anxious about dirt and bacteria and shit, he’s still worried about what his mom thinks of his friends (she doesn’t like Bill anymore, and if she doesn’t like Bill, there’s no hope for anyone else) (poor Bill, Mommy can’t even feel bad for him because of Georgie, she just scolds Eddie whenever he hangs out with him and labels Bill as a “bad influence”). He’s pretty much the same as he’s always been.

And he’s still...well, _you know_...and he wishes he weren’t.

Nobody knows yet. And Eddie plans to keep it that way, because if anyone found out, he’d be in trouble.

He shoves his secret deep down inside of him, and tries not to think about it. Not thinking about it is good.

But when he does think about it, he feels sick to his stomach, and not even a puff off his inhaler can comfort him. There’s an AIDS epidemic going on, right_ now_, and there isn’t particularly a crisis in Derry or anything, but Mommy’s friend in New York got it and he didn’t even have sex or anything, he just got it through a hangnail, and Eddie’s obviously not having sex, but he _is _messing around outside in the summer heat, and if he gets a cut, that cut could get infected, and then he could get AIDS, and Eddie knows he’s probably overthinking it all, but the thing is that the guys that are getting AIDS...

They’re...they’re guys like Eddie.

So, realistically, if it came down to Eddie, Bill, Stan, and Richie? Eddie’s the one getting sick.

_Jesus._

Not exactly a very happy thought.

And the worst part of all is that Eddie can’t get through this unbothered, _oh, no, _the universe just _loves _Eddie Kaspbrak, and so instead of letting him get peacefully by, it’s given him a _crush._

And that word makes Eddie feel jittery and horrified all at once.

When he’d first come to terms with his sexuality, he’d thought about it: Do I have a crush on anyone, on any _boys,_ even if it’s sick and twisted and wrong?

Well, if he were to have a crush on somebody, he’d thought, it would most likely be one of his exactly three friends.

Not Stanley, because that would be really fucking _weird_. Stan’s too much like a brother, too much of, like...a _dad_, that there’s no way Eddie could...no. That’s too weird. Gross.

He’d actually wondered about Bill, ‘cause when he’d first met him, Eddie had been starstruck. But he feels like if he ever _did_ like Bill that way, that ship has long past sailed, and he sees Bill as an older sibling that he’ll follow until he dies, really.

No, it’s not Stan, and it’s not Bill. It’s none of the other boys at school, either.

It’s fucking _Richie. _Because of _course _it fucking is.

Eddie doesn’t even get why, because Richie is always making jokes about Eddie’s mom, and doing stupid impressions, and fighting with Eddie over dumb shit, and making fun of his shorts, and joking around with him, and buying him popcorn when they go to the movies, and walking him home after dark, and pinching Eddie’s cheeks and saying, _Cute, cute, cute!_...

Ok. So maybe Eddie _does _know why.

Ughhhh, it’s just...Richie’s an asshole, for sure. A total dickhead. But he can also be really funny, and he actually cares about people, and he’s close to Eddie in a way that Stan and Bill just _aren’t, _and...ugh.

He doesn’t deserve to be the object of Eddie’s gross affections. And it’s not like Richie’s...because he’s always, always talking about _girls, _and Eddie is _not_, no matter how much he wishes he could.

“It’s true, I swear,” Richie says, grinning. They’re at the quarry, and taking off their clothes, and Richie’s been talking about how he felt up Gina Polanski on the last day of school (which is definitely _not _true) for the past ten minutes.

“No, it’s _not,” _Eddie says.

“Oh, sure it’s true,” Stanley says, rolling his eyes. “Just like how it’s true that you fingered Melanie Burst under a desk. Just like how it’s true that Kathy Robinson blew you at the football game.”

“Those things happened!” Richie retorts, fooling absolutely no one. “You just don’t want to believe that all the babes want a piece of _this_ and not _your_ skinny ass.”

“Beep-beep, Richie.”

“Pretty funny, Richie,” Ben, the newest addition to their group says, wincing as his shirt tugs at his bandages on the way off, “But I think if you really _had _done all those things, you wouldn’t be hanging out with us losers.”

“You kn-know what I think is t-true? I th-th-think it’s true that your d-dick is small.” Bill says, smirking as he steps out of his jeans. Stan laughs loudly. Ben giggles.

“Big Bill gets off a fuckin’ good one!” Richie shouts with glee, and then he pitches his head back and laughs, curls bouncing, eyes screwed up behind those dumb glasses, throat bobbing, and Eddie’s fucking _staring _again. And then, for some reason, he turns to Eddie and says:

“Well, what about you, Eds? Got your eye on any hotties at school?” And suddenly, Eddie doesn’t know what to say.

“Leave him alone, R-Richie,” Bill says, but Richie ignores him.

“Come on, Spaghetti, there’s gotta be _someone_. No way someone as cute and tiny as you doesn’t have a crush on somebody. Who is it?”

_You, you fucking asshole! It’s fucking you! I have a crush on you! _Eddie doesn’t say.

Instead, he huffs (hoping he’s not blushing) and says, “Your mother. Now, come on, are we jumping in or not?”

Richie finishes wrestling himself out of his pants and joins the others at the edge.

“I vote Ben to go first,” he says. Ben jumps a little. “Newest member of the group and all that.”

“Oh, uh,” Ben stammers, the tips of his ears turning pink. “I think I’m ok, actually.”

“I’ll go,” a voice calls, and they all whip around to see Beverly Marsh, hair newly cut, unbuttoning her dress, and then she’s dashing past them with a murmur of, “Sissies,” and she’s gone, over the edge.

“_What the fuck?_” Richie screeches, and then Bill jumps, and then Ben, and then Richie shoves Eddie over but Eddie grabs a hold of his arm and pulls him down with him, and they plummet to the water below. Stan jumps last, quietly and gracefully, slipping into the water and hardly making a sound as he does it.

So it happens that Ben and Bev become part of their group, and that’s really cool, because Ben and Bev are kind of the best. Ben’s really sweet, and Bev (although Eddie had fostered a grudge against her ‘cause of all the dumb rumors that he shouldn’t have believed in the first place) is awesome. Ben lets Eddie borrow his comics and Bev makes fun of Richie with him, and while Eddie had never _thought _he’d needed more friends, the two of them fit in so perfectly that it’s like they were always there.

And then the rock war happens, and Mike joins their group too. Eddie would be lying if he said that he’s not a little bit in awe of Mike, and also maybe-has-a-tiny-crush-on-him-but-not-like-the-big-kind-of-crush-that-makes-him-want-to-scream-like-he-has-on-Richie-more-like-a-smaller-crush-where-Mike-is-just-really-cute-and-nice-and-sometimes-Eddie-blushes-around-him-but-still-not-as-bad-as-Richie-because-Richie-makes-him-feel-annoyed-and-giddy-and-dirty-all-at-the-same-time-and-ahhhhhhh.

Anyway. Mike’s cool, too. And once he joins the Losers Club, Eddie feels that they as a group are totally complete.

Even if Bill won’t give up on looking for Georgie. Even if Bev smokes and it messes with Eddie’s asthma, even if looking at Richie makes Eddie want to simultaneously kiss him and throw up (because Eddie’s thoughts are wrong, wrong, wrong, _wrong_, and he shouldn’t be having them).

Despite all of these things, they’re still a family. Life isn’t so bad.

Until it is.

The house on Neibolt Street is disgusting, and Eddie hates having to walk past it every day on his way home. Something about its darkness, its ruin, its complete lack of life chills Eddie’s blood, and makes him want to run far away from it. Mike says that his dad thinks that Derry is a cursed town, and if that’s true, then Neibolt is definitely the cursed center of it all.

So of course Eddie has to drop his fucking pills all over the place in front of it, because he could’ve sworn he’d heard a voice coming from inside of it, calling to him, and then the door had swung open, but it must’ve been the breeze, it didn’t open on its own, but there _is _no breeze, and Eddie is suddenly very, very afraid.

He’s crouched down in the street, fumbling as he picks up his scattered pills and throws them back in the box, not even bothering to watch where he’s putting them, he can sort them later, all he wants right now is to _go, leave, get the fuck out_, and as he’s reaching for one of the little red capsules, a heavily bandaged, rotting, grey hand gets there, first.

Eddie slowly looks up into the eyes of a leper.

Like, that’s what he fucking is! A fucking leper! His skin is all scabby, and his hair is long, matted, and tangled, and his eyes, horribly swollen, are dripping pus. His nose is literally nonexistent, his mouth is a raw and bloody hole, and Eddie can see the part of his forehead poking out from under the bandages that has no skin on it, no skin at all, so he can see right through to the bone, and it’s _disgusting, it’s awful, _and that’s not even mentioning the _smell -_

The leper dribbles all over his ragged clothes and says, _Do you think this will help me, Eddie?_

Eddie gasps and launches himself backwards, lands on his ass and scrambles to his feet, and he doesn’t even care that he’s running in the direction of the house because he knows that he’s just gotta _run._

He can hear the leper behind him, all uneven footsteps and gravelly growls, and he’s gaining on him, he’s gaining, and Eddie’s gonna get hurt, that leper is gonna touch him and he’s gonna get sick, gonna get what he has.

_Come back here, kid!_ the leper screams, lurching after him as Eddie cuts around back of the building. _I’ll give you a blowjob! Bobby does it for a dime. Bobby does it any time. Fifteen cents for overtime. You got fifteen cents, Eddie?_

Eddie can hear himself screaming, and then he’s cutting through the bushes, ‘cause he remembers there’s a hole in the fence somewhere from when he’d dared Richie

_(God, he can’t think about Richie right now)_

to climb through it, and he’s just about to go through when he sneaks a glance behind him, and the leper is gone.

In his place is a clown. An honest-to-God circus clown, holding a bunch of balloons in a triangle formation, like it’s staring Eddie down, ready to strike, and holy shit, holy shit, _holy shit_

“What are you looking for, Eds?” the clown asks, grinning, staring at him with those yellow eyes, and Eddie _really_ doesn’t like it when IT calls him Eds. “Where are you going?”

And Eddie wishes he knew how to answer.

The balloons pop, all at once, and Eddie yelps and covers his face in surprise.

When he opens his eyes, the clown is nowhere in sight.

Eddie races all the way home, sneaking glances behind him every ten feet or so. He ignores his mother’s worried questions (he can deal with her later), opting instead to shut himself in his room and sit on his bed, taking periodical hits from his inhaler, because his lungs are on _fire._

He doesn’t understand what just happened.

But somehow, whatever that thing was, it had known Eddie. Had known Eddie’s name. Had known about Eddie’s fear of disease. Had known...

Had known that Eddie’s gay.

And it had offered him a blowjob, and Eddie gags at the memory, and feels completely unclean, shuddering emphatically.

_What are you looking for, Eds? Where are you going?_

How the hell should Eddie know?

This is what he _does _know: He has no idea what the fuck he just experienced. He is most certainly _not _falling asleep tonight. And he is _terrified_.

And he suddenly remembers something his dad had said to him.

_Find a girl, settle down._

Well, _that_ isn’t happening.

If Dad were still alive, he’d be ashamed to be Eddie’s father.

The others have seen things, too. Not a leper, but other things, fears of their own. Werewolves, dead brothers, giant birds, zombie children, bloody sinks, mummies. A clown, too.

That, they’ve all seen.

At least Eddie isn’t alone.

But he still is, in a way. Because none of his friends saw something that offered them a blowjob, none of his friends saw something that _knew _something so personal about them.

Though, maybe they did, and they just don’t want to talk about it.

Understandable.

“We n-need a place,” Bill says. “A h-hideout. Where we c-can talk about IT.”

“Why can’t we just go to the quarry?” Stanley asks, shifting uncomfortably due to the topic of discussion. “Or hang at Mike’s farm, or something.”

“No,” Bill says, and his tone suggests there is no room for argument. “Our own p-place. J-Just for us, no one else. L-Losers only.”

So Ben builds the clubhouse.

It’s cool. Like, really awesome. Eddie makes a fuss about the decidedly not sturdy support beams, and the fact that the roof could cave in at any moment and bury them all alive, but it really is great, only for them, the perfect secret spot to hang, where no one can find them. It becomes less of a place to discuss clowns, and more of a place to just be kids.

It’s a home, and Eddie finds himself preferring the clubhouse to his actual house. In the clubhouse, no one is breathing down Eddie’s neck, making sure he’s taken all of his pills. In the clubhouse, no one is hovering over his shoulder, forcing Eddie to keep his door unlocked, preferably open. In the clubhouse, no one is stopping Eddie from being with his friends, because his friends are right there with him.

“Here.” Stanley hands Richie a brightly-colored shower cap. Eddie’s already put on his own. It isn’t exactly comfortable, but the thought of bugs crawling on him is too gross for Eddie to want to chance it.

“The fuck is this?” Richie snorts from his position in the hammock, looking at the cap with disdain.

“So you don’t get spiders in your hair while you’re down here,” Stan replies, smiling encouragingly.

Richie rolls his eyes. “We’re not afraid of fucking spiders, Stanley.”

“Maybe _you_ aren’t, Richie,” Mike says, tugging his own hat on, and Stan beams at his compliance. “But I can’t say the same for the rest of us.”

“I stand corrected,” Richie grumbles, eyes flicking back to his comic, and Eddie really doesn’t want to be wearing this dumbass cap anymore, so he yanks it off and throws it vaguely in Bill’s direction.

“Hey, Rich,” Eddie says, approaching the hammock. “Your ten minutes are up. My turn.”

“Are you kidding me?” Richie asks. “No.”

“Ten minutes each, that was the _rule!_” Eddie exclaims, exasperated, and eventually he just resigns himself to the fact that Richie is simply not going to get out, and he shoves him aside, kicking his shoes off and sliding in opposite Richie, aiming his socked feet for Richie’s face. Richie yelps and flails, smacking at Eddie’s legs.

“What the fuck, Eds?” he says, shifting his body violently and causing the hammock to swing dangerously. “I can see your vagina.”

“Beep-beep, asshole,” Eddie responds, pushing his foot down into Richie’s chest as Richie’s legs continue to squirm. “And don’t call me that.”

The rest of the Losers turn away to discuss other, probably more important things, because at this point they are completely used to Richie and Eddie’s bickering. Richie finally stops kicking, and Eddie follows, though he still shoves his feet into Richie’s face, just to be annoying. Richie goes back to his comic, stopping only to smack Eddie away from him, and he rests his hand on Eddie’s thigh like it belongs there.

Eddie is suddenly very, very aware of this fact.

Richie is _touching _his _leg._

Richie does not seem to be aware of the fact that he is currently touching Eddie’s leg as gently as he is.

Eddie feels like he’s going to explode.

Unlike most of Richie’s touches, this one is tender, drawn-out, and soft. His palm lies flat on Eddie’s thigh and his fingers branch out on top of Eddie’s skin, and Eddie is completely frozen.

Richie doesn’t even know what he’s doing to Eddie right now. How much inner turmoil he’s causing him.

“Rich,” Eddie manages to choke out, because this is nice, _so _nice, but the voice in his head is telling him it’s _wrong._

Richie glances up from his comic book, blinks once, looks down at his hand, and snatches it back like he’s been burned.

“Shit, sorry, Eddie,” Richie stammers, not meeting Eddie’s eyes, and this nervous, almost _scared _look on his face is not one Eddie likes at all. “Didn’t mean to, haha. Guess I just got so used to touching your mom like that that I did it on reflex.”

“Shut _up_,” Eddie says, blushing, and then it’s mercifully back to normal again, as Eddie tries to knock Richie’s glasses off his head.

It’d been a moment. A moment, that’s all, and now it’s over and Eddie will never have to think about it again.

But he thinks about it again. And then again. And then a third time. And he keeps fucking _thinking _about it.

And he has _dreams _about it. Which is terrible, and embarrassing, and completely unwanted on Eddie’s part.

But the more he thinks about it, and the more he fucking dreams about it, the more a thought blooms in the back of Eddie’s brain, trying to worm its way to the front. He hates to think about it, but...

It’s just that Richie had acted so _weird _when he’d realized he’d been touching Eddie’s leg. He’d tried to brush it off with a joke, but it had sort of fallen flat, and he’d looked nervous, almost as nervous as Eddie had felt, and scared, like Eddie had been, and it might’ve been the way the light shone through the door to the clubhouse, but Eddie could’ve sworn Richie had blushed.

And so it is that the messed up side of Eddie’s brain starts to tell him that maybe Richie is like Eddie.

_Maybe Richie’s the same as you._

_Maybe he feels sick to his stomach when he sees handsome actors in movies, just like you do._

_Maybe he dreams about boys in the same twisted way that you do._

_Maybe Richie has a crush on _you_, too._

_What would you do, then, Eddie?_

Oh God, what _would _he do, then?

Eddie doesn’t know. But he doesn’t have to, because he’s fooling himself. What he _does_ know is that Richie isn’t _gay. _And he doesn’t have a _crush_ on Eddie.

But whenever they’re in the hammock together, Richie lets his hand linger on Eddie’s leg, not even noticing that’s what he’s doing, and no matter how wrong it is, Eddie doesn’t tell him to stop again.

He’s in the house with Bill and Richie, even though he doesn’t want to be, even though he wants to go outside, even though he wants to go home_,_ but he can’t, because he’d drawn the short straw, of course he had, and now he’s here, and he wants to go _home, _and a familiar voice is whispering,

_Eddie, what are you looking for?_

_I don’t know, _Eddie thinks, but he stops in his tracks and peers behind his shoulder frightfully. _I don’t know, you stupid clown, so fucking leave me _alone.

The voice doesn’t say anything else. The voice doesn’t say anything else, but the door slams in front of him, and Richie and Bill start screaming for him, trying to open it. Eddie races for the door, panic setting in, but the floor falls through, he can’t get across, and he’s going to die, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, and as he goes fumbling for his inhaler, a cold and rotting hand lands on his shoulder.

_Eddie_, the leper _expels, _because there’s really no other word to describe the way the words seem to fall out of his mouth, and his bandages are oozing, and his eyes are a filmy white, and _Eddie_, well,

Eddie blacks out. Momentarily. He can feel himself falling backwards, falling down through the hole in the floor, and there’s a brief moment where he’s suspended in midair before he crashes into the table. The legs snap and the table collapses into a cloud of dust.

Eddie manages to summon enough strength to register the searing pain in his right arm before his head lolls back and he passes out.

He wakes up, and he’s alone, and oh _fuck, _his arm’s not supposed to bend like that, oh my God oh my God oh my God his arm is _broken _and it hurts so, so fucking bad -

There’s a rustle from the old refrigerator in front of him, and Eddie’s head jerks up, and all he knows is fear.

A single white hand snakes out of the door, rapping its fingertips teasingly on the wall.

And then the clown is coming out of the fridge, it’s unfolding itself, shifting, twisting out and around and in all sorts of way that it shouldn’t be able to. It shakes itself once for good measure, and then stares down at Eddie, grinning that crazed grin.

IT takes a step closer.

And then another.

Eddie backs up, feet scrabbling as he tries to get away, backing up into the debris of the table, still clutching his arm, and he can’t breathe but he’s not going for his inhaler now, not right now, and the fucking thing is getting closer to him. It starts _wheezing_, clutching at it’s throat, gasping for air, and Eddie realizes that IT is mocking him.

And then it’s on him, grabbing his face, grabbing his broken arm (ow ow ow _fuck_), and it’s snapping at his other arm almost _playfully_, teeth gnashing, getting oh-so-close and then jerking back, giggling sinisterly at Eddie’s terror, and _shit _he’s so scared, he’s so fucking scared, and he’s really going to die, he’s going to die right here right now and this is it, this is it -

But then Richie and Bill burst through the door. And then Beverly and the others dart in, and Bev plunges a fence post into IT’s head, and it rears back, howling in pain, staggering back towards the fridge. Richie and Bill dash over to Eddie, and Eddie is screaming, and Richie is screaming, and Bill is, and Bev, Ben, Mike, Stan, and Eddie still can’t fucking _breathe._

The clown whips back around, and its face is all fucked up, and it’s _chuckling. _It’s hand shoots out and it starts to advance on them, claws bared, and Eddie can’t look away, he can’t tear his eyes away from this fucking clown.

A hand tugs at the back of his shirt, and another grabs Eddie’s cheek, and Eddie turns, and it’s Richie, Richie looking at him with terrified, panicked eyes, and he’s yelling something, and Eddie can barely hear him but it sounds like he’s saying, no, he _is _saying:

“Eddie! Look at me, ok? _Look at me! _Eddie, look at me!” And Richie’s pleading with him.

Eddie is scared out of his mind, and he can’t stop yelling, but he looks at Richie, lets himself do it, and all he can see is Richie, wide eyes behind dumb coke bottle glasses, and the hand on his cheek, and the one on his back, moving to hold Eddie’s face in both hands, and Richie, Richie, Richie is all there is.

_I’m going to die, we all are, and Richie’s going to be the last thing I see before I do._

_Oh._

Eddie likes it. Not the fact that his life is about to end. But the fact that Richie will be the image he’ll leave with.

And it’s right there that Eddie understands something, in that split-second before the clown leaves, curling behind the door and down the steps.

Eddie doesn’t have a crush on Richie.

Eddie doesn’t have a crush on Richie, because Eddie is _in love _with Richie.

_Fuck..._

Should he tell him? Should he tell him, right now, because they’re about to die?

The clown disappears again before Eddie can answer that question.

And when they get out of Neibolt, Eddie’s mother is furious.

“It’s all your fault,” she hisses, shoving Eddie into the car and whirling on his friends. “All of you! I warned you, I _told _you all how delicate he is, and you still let him get hurt!”

“Mommy, no,” Eddie whimpers, but the window is up and he knows she can’t hear him.

“M-Mrs. K,” Bill says hopelessly. “It was a mistake. W-We didn’t m-m-mean to - “

“Don’t you try anything with me, William Denbrough!” she hisses. “You were his first friend. You started it all.”

“Mrs. Kaspbrak, Bill wasn’t - “ Bev starts to say, but then Mommy is advancing on her, saying terrible, terrible things, and Eddie hopes beyond hope that Bev will still love him after this, because she’s like a sister to him, and Eddie can’t _not _be her friend.

He can’t _not _be friends with any of them.

But they’re driving away, to the hospital, and Eddie starts to cry. Partly because of the pain, which is _excruciating_, but mostly because of his friends.

“Oh, Eddie-bear,” Mommy says soothingly, eyes locked on the road. “It’s ok, honey. They’re not going to hurt you anymore. You’ll never have to see them again.”

“No, Mommy,” Eddie sobs. “I want to. I love them.”

“You don’t,” she says. “And if they really loved you, they wouldn’t have hurt you like this. They’re dangerous. And you won’t play with them anymore, understand?”

Eddie just sobs harder.

For his entire life, the only good thing has been his friends. And now, she’s taking them away from him. Just like she takes everything away.

Bill. Stanley. Beverly. Ben. Mike.

_Richie._

So, when Eddie finds out that his medicine is fake, he almost feels like he should’ve seen it coming.

What’s one more lie? Their whole relationship as mother and son is just one giant lie.

A gazebo.

Eddie sort of feels like his world is crumbling around him. He also feels..._alive._

And maybe he’ll never be totally free from his mother. But as he runs out of the house and gets on his bike, leaving his mother screaming after him, Eddie Kaspbrak feels _powerful_.

“Eds,” Richie says, after all is said and done, after they’ve made it out of the sewers, after they’ve made the oath. “Are you ok?”

And for once, Eddie can’t find it in himself to correct the nickname. “Not really,” he says. “But I don’t think any of us are.”

“Yeah,” Richie sighs. “Guess not.”

They’re walking back from the field, wheeling their bikes through the woods, going somewhere, unsure of where. Eddie had left first, but Richie had caught up to him.

Eddie really just wants to go home and patch up the cut on his palm.

He hates that he does, because to him, that means his mother still has some control over him.

But right now, he’s perfectly content with walking with Richie, and he smiles a little, because that means he’s got some control, too.

“What’s funny?” Richie asks. Eddie shrugs.

“Dunno. Probably nothing.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, and he’s giving Eddie a look that he can’t place. “Probably nothing.”

And then:

  
“How do you feel?”

Eddie gives him a weird glance, because Richie is rarely so serious, so stoic. “Uh, what do you mean?”

“I mean, you killed a clown that eats children. On top of that, your mother’s been lying to you about your asthma and all that shit for almost your whole life. How do you _feel_, Eds?”

Eddie looks at him in surprise. “Don’t know why you care,” he says.

Richie rolls his eyes, and the motion is so very Stan-like that Eddie almost laughs in spite of it all. “I care because you’re my _friend_, Spaghetti. And because - “

But he stops. Shuts his mouth and clenches his jaw, won’t meet Eddie’s eyes.

“Because what, Rich?” Eddie asks softly.

“Because - “ Richie says. “Because...I - you - ‘cause...”

He looks panicked. Lost. Lost is a good word for it.

“I don’t know,” he finally says lamely, and Eddie wishes he could know what’s going on in Richie’s head.

“Ok,” Eddie says. Richie sighs.

“Ok.”

“Honestly? I think I just feel tired.”

Richie snorts. “I’ll drink to that, Eds. Don’t we fucking all.”

Eddie chuckles. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Hey,” Richie says when they reach the main road, and they’re on the Kissing Bridge. “Do you want to hang out later?”

Eddie cocks his head, wheeling his bike past all the carvings, but Richie stops, so Eddie does, too. “Like with everyone else?”

“I mean, if you wanted to,” Richie says, kicking a stone in between his feet.

“You wouldn’t want that?” Eddie asks.

“Well,” Richie says, staring at the carvings done by generations of Derry townspeople, proclaiming their love for everyone to see. “I was kind of thinking it could be just the two of us.”

Eddie’s mouth feels a little dry. For some reason, he remembers that his hand still has an open cut on it. This shouldn’t be weird, they’ve hung out alone together tons of times in the past.

They have not, however, been alone together since Eddie realized how deep his feelings for Richie run. It’s different now.

“Oh,” Eddie says, and then he blinks. “Sure.”

“Yeah?” Richie says, looking at Eddie hopefully, and Eddie wonders if maybe there’s something he’s missing. Maybe Richie had wanted to be alone with him, too.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, grinning. “It’ll be fun.”

Richie smiles. “Yeah, Eds. It’ll be fun.”

They continue to walk along the bridge, pushing their bikes down the deserted road. Eddie tries not to look at the carvings staring down at him from either side. It hurts too much.

“Richie,” he says suddenly, and his heart starts racing. Richie looks up at him, a question forming behind his eyes.

“What’s up?” he asks softly, and Eddie can _feel _something between them. Like a static charge.

Maybe Richie feels it too.

“I...,” Eddie flounders, and something inside him, some stupid part of IT that stayed with him asks: _Eddie, what are you looking for?_

Eddie swallows. “Don’t call me, Eds.”

Richie blinks. And then he laughs. “Sure thing. How does ‘Spaghedward’ sound?”

Eddie shoves him lightly, just a small brush of hand against arm, but it leaves his fingertips tingling, and he laughs, and Richie laughs, too, and it’s been a terrible summer, but it’s over now.

It’s all over.

Eddie wouldn’t say that things go back to normal after That Summer.

For one thing, Bev moves away. She promises to call them all, and Eddie cries a little when he says goodbye, in the field after the oath. He tells her he’ll miss his big sister. She smiles sadly and says that she doesn’t want to leave her little brother behind.

She doesn’t call.

She doesn’t call, and that’s a mistake. She doesn’t call, and Eddie doesn’t understand _why._

Though, part of him does. Part of him thinks that she isn’t calling because she can’t call. Bev isn’t calling because IT isn’t _letting_ her.

Maybe she doesn’t realize that she’s supposed to be calling at all.

For another thing, Eddie can’t stop using his inhaler.

He wishes he could, he really wishes. His mother’s hold on him has weakened, but only by so much, and sometimes, when Eddie really isn’t sure about something, he can feel himself slipping back into her grasp. He can’t afford to do that, though, he _can’t_, because he’s gotten out and he can’t go back in.

But he still has asthma.

Even though Greta had told him that it’s a placebo, even though Mr. Keene had explained that his medication is just tap water with a spritz of camphor and his pills are nothing but sugar capsules, even though Eddie had stood up to his mother, had _fought back_, he simply can’t stop.

It’s the comfort of the plasticky feel of it clenched in his hand, of the puff as he pulls the trigger, of the slightly sour taste that floods his mouth when he uses it. Eddie can’t seem to let go.

It would be easier if his brain didn’t still think he has asthma. Because even though he _knows _he doesn’t, he’s still been led his entire life to _believe _he does. And it’s hard to quit believing something like that.

His friends try to discourage him. Ben tries to talk him down from using it so often, all soothing tones and gentle words. Mike finds a medical book explaining the placebo effect, to help Eddie understand it better. Stan suggests simply quitting cold turkey, but Eddie doesn’t really think he’d be able to do that. Richie doesn’t say anything when Eddie uses his inhaler, but every time he does, Richie tells him, support lacing his voice, that he went a bit longer this time, that he waited it out for just a little more, like a real trooper, in a way that makes Eddie’s face turn red, though it has nothing to do with lack of air.

Bill is maybe the best about it. Bill is often the best about a lot of things. And he’s Eddie’s best friend. He understands him like most people don’t.

“What you’ve g-got to do,” Bill tells him. “Is w-w-work on it slowly. S-Start small, using the inhaler j-just a little less than n-n-normal, and w-work your way up to less and l-less doses a d-d-day.”

And it works, at least for a little bit. Eddie never makes it all the way there, but with his friends’s words of encouragement, he gets pretty close.

Mom still won’t leave it alone. She probably never will.

Eddie resents her. He might even hate her.

But she’s left her mark on him, and it might not fade away, not ever.

Even though it makes no logical sense, even though it shouldn’t be happening at all, not after he’s found out the truth, Eddie’s lungs still tighten, still seize up, turning to lead. He still finds himself gasping, short of breath, and wheezing whenever he’s run for a while, or when he’s nervous, or -

Or when he’s scared.

And Eddie’s scared a lot.

The clown is starting to fade. He can’t recall everything. Only fragments, missing pieces of a puzzle. But IT’s still there, still taunting Eddie, and he often can’t sleep at night. He finds himself waking in a cold sweat, throat on the precipice of letting out a scream, shaking and sobbing, and searching in the dark blindly for the light, before spending the rest of the night bathed in the glow of his lamp, unable to fall back asleep.

He doesn’t remember his dreams, and Mom never notices them.

They don’t even talk about it. The Losers. They don’t ever mention it, don’t tell each other about their trauma. There’s never been a good time to bring it up. And it’s too apparent, too prominent in their every day lives without them even realizing it. Bill’s face turns stoic whenever they reach the corner of Jackson and Witcham. Ben doesn’t go to the library on his own anymore. Mike sleeps over with one of the others more often than not, because he can’t stand being home alone in his room. Stan scratches at the thin white scars on the sides of his face without even realizing it, frowning as he does. Richie keeps telling jokes, but Eddie can see the lack of feeling behind his eyes. Eddie doesn’t know where Bev is, what she’s doing, but he often wonders if she can feel it, too. Maybe she doesn’t understand why, but she can remember something. Can remember the fear.

It’s terrifying.

And then Richie starts sleeping at Eddie’s house.

It just happens one night, when they’re fifteen. Eddie’s sitting in his room, doing his homework and trying to put off turning out the light, because he hates being alone in the dark, it reminds him too much of the sewers. Something strikes his window, and he almost jumps out of his skin.

He walks slowly to the window, staring down at the grass, oh God what if it’s IT, what if IT isn’t dead and it’s come back for Eddie, to ask him what he’s looking for -

It’s Richie.

He’s standing down on the lawn and grinning up at Eddie.

Jesus _Christ, _Eddie’s gonna _kill _him.

“Richie,” he hisses, silently sliding the window open. “What the fuck are you doing, you scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” Richie says back, far too loudly for this late at night. “Can I come up?”

“Of course, dumbass,” Eddie says. “But be quiet, my mom can _not _hear you.”

Richie slides gracelessly onto the carpet with a thump that leaves Eddie cringing. He shuts the window to keep out the October chill, and then rounds on Richie.

“What do you want?” he deadpans.

“Aw, Eds,” Richie says. “Can’t a Romeo drop in on his Juliet whenever he’s in the mood?”

“Beep-beep, Richie,” Eddie grumbles, but he’s flushing at the comparison, and he hopes Richie won’t be able to tell in this lighting. “Don’t call me that.”

Richie chuckles quietly.

“Seriously,” Eddie says. “What are you doing here?”

Richie shrugs carelessly. “Got bored,” he says. “Wondered if you were up.”

“Why didn’t you just go to Bill’s?” Eddie asks. “He lives closer to you.”

Richie looks at Eddie, almost expectantly, like he’s waiting for Eddie to laugh at the punchline to a joke he doesn’t get.

“Wasn’t Bill who I wanted to see,” he says simply.

Oh. Ok.

“Oh,” Eddie says, and he’s really blushing now, _oh shit, Richie can’t just come in here and say that shit, Eddie’s gonna lose his fucking mind -_

Richie must misinterpret something in Eddie’s tone because he says: “Shit, dude, if you’re busy or tired or you just don’t want to see me or whatever, then I get it. I can go home if you want.” He turns back towards the window. “Sorry for bothering you.”

“No, Rich,” Eddie yelps a little too loudly for his own comfort, grabbing Richie’s wrist and pulling him back. “It’s ok.”

“Eddie, I can - “

“Shut up. I want you to stay.”

Richie blinks. “You do?”

“...Yeah.”

“Ok,” Richie says finally, and he flops down on Eddie’s bed, not bothering to take off his shoes.

Eddie sits carefully next to him, and he doesn’t even reprimand him. Something about the energy of the situation stops him. He lies back on the pillow next to Richie, and just breathes.

“Eddie,” Richie says, breaking the silence. “Bill’s leaving.”

“I know,” Eddie responds. “_Fuck, _I know.”

Richie takes a shuddery breath. “Shit.”

“_Yeah._”

And suddenly, Eddie’s crying.

“Sorry,” he blubbers. “Sorry.”

But then Richie’s wrapping his arms around him, pulling him closer.

“Don’t be,” Richie murmurs, and his arm is around Eddie’s waist and his face is in Eddie’s hair, and if Eddie weren’t so damn upset right now, he might be exploding.

Eddie hugs him back.

“I’m ok,” he says, after he’s calmed down. “I’m ok. Sorry, it’s just...he was my first friend.”

“I know,” Richie says. And even though Eddie’s calm, he doesn’t let go of him.

“I should probably go,” he mutters eventually, and Eddie’s stomach feels hollow.

“_No,_” he says with sudden force, and Richie looks down at him, lips parted in surprise.

God, Eddie can’t think about Richie’s lips. Not right now. Not when they’re _right there._

“Stay with me,” Eddie says. Richie swallows, and Eddie can see his throat bob, moving up and down.

“Ok,” Richie breathes. He turns out the light.

And they fall asleep together.

And three days later.

And a week after that.

And almost every night after that.

If holding a boy in your arms is so wrong, then why does it feel so right?

If loving a boy is supposed to be sinful, then why does Eddie feel happiest when he’s loving him?

Bill is gone. Stan has moved. Ben is planning to.

No one who’s left has called, not once.

And now Eddie’s leaving, too.

His mom got some job in New York City, and they’re moving there, even though Eddie will have to change schools, even though Eddie’s never lived anywhere but Derry, even though Eddie’s sixteen years old and he’s about to leave his friends behind.

And he won’t call. He knows he won’t, no matter how much he wants to.

The day before he’s set to leave, Eddie sneaks out to the quarry one last time. Ben and Mike and Richie meet him there, and they dip their feet in the water, even though it’s mid-November, listening to the radio while Richie smokes and the rest of them pass around a bottle of vodka.

It’s nice, but Eddie staggers home feeling emptier than he had before. Even when he’d been with them, it had felt a little wrong. Like they weren’t complete. Like they were missing people.

They are missing people. Eddie’s been feeling like that for a while.

And the Losers Club is about to say goodbye to another member.

Eddie, although he is fairly drunk, manages to make his way up to his room without alerting his mother. He crosses to the record player, one of the only things he hasn’t packed away yet, and searches for an album. His eyes land on a familiar cover, and his heart twinges at the sight of it, but he puts it on anyway and lets the sound of Wham! quietly fill his ears.

He’s trying not to cry.

Richie stumbles in through the window then, just like Eddie had known he would. Rather then coming in with a shit-eating grin and a perverted joke on the tip of his tongue, tonight Richie just looks sad.

“Eddie,” he says, and Eddie doesn’t respond, just crosses the room and wraps his arms around Richie’s middle.

After a few minutes he realizes Richie’s crying. And then he realizes that he is, too.

They sit together on the edge of the bed, refusing to let go of each other. Richie runs a hand through his curls, slightly shaggier and longer now that he’s older, and Eddie wants to do that to Richie, too, so he does.

Richie takes a sharp intake of breath as Eddie’s fingers comb across his scalp, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

“Still listening to Wham!, I see,” Richie says, smiling slightly. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Of course,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Richie chuckles. “Fag,” he says fondly, and that word has never sounded bad coming out of Richie’s mouth.

“I don’t want to go,” Eddie says after a while, leaning his head on Richie’s shoulder. Richie squeezes his hand.

“I don’t want you to, either, Eds,” Richie replies. “I wish you didn’t have to.”

Eddie looks up at him thoughtfully. “What do you wish?” And Richie looks at him, lips parted slightly.

“I wish,” he says. “I wish that Bev were still here. And Bill, and Stan. That we were all together again. And I wish we didn’t live in this stupid town.”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs. “Me too.”

“But,” Richie says, shifting restlessly. “I wish I could run away, too. Just leave, go off somewhere else.”

“Alone?” Eddie asks, though he thinks he knows the answer to that question.

“With you,” Richie whispers, shutting his eyes. “With you, Eddie.”

Eddie’s mouth feels dry. “Where would you want to go?” he asks.

Richie shrugs. “Away.”

Eddie thinks about that.

“You’re the best part of this fucking town, Eds,” Richie says. “You are.”

Eddie’s heart is beating abnormally fast. He takes his head off of Richie’s shoulder.

“Richie...,” he mutters, and he can’t stop himself from leaning over and pressing his lips softly to Richie’s.

He expects Richie to be shocked. He expects Richie to be disgusted. He expects Richie to hate him. He knows as soon as their lips connect that it’s a mistake.

But Richie stiffens a little. And then he brings his hand up to cup Eddie’s cheek.

Eddie pulls back, only a little. Richie’s eyes are closed, and he’s breathing heavily.

“Eds...”

“Sorry,” Eddie says.

“Shut up,” Richie responds, and he kisses him again.

Eddie feels...God, he doesn’t even know. He feels drunk, and like he’s dreaming, and he feels excited, but also terrified, and Richie’s lips are warm, warm, warm, and soft, soft, soft, and he’s so gentle, and Eddie wants to die, he feels like dying, here, right now, because any other death would be unfair.

“Rich,” he says. “Are we drunk?”

“Probably,” Richie says back. “But I don’t want to stop.”

“Me neither,” Eddie says, and he feels like crying, but he doesn’t. He just kisses Richie again.

Warm, warm, warm, soft, soft, soft. Richie, Richie, _Richie_.

But they have to stop, eventually. Because Eddie has to leave in the morning, and Richie can’t be here when he does.

“Richie, you have to...” Eddie says, trailing off.

“Eds,” Richie mumbles. “_Please._”

“I know,” Eddie whispers against his lips. “I know. But you have to.”

“Yeah,” Richie says hoarsely, and Eddie loves him so much he’s going to combust.

“Call me,” Richie says when he’s halfway out the window. “Don’t forget about me, Eddie.”

“Rich,” Eddie says, and he is crying now. “I’m going to. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Richie sighs, the tears running down his face, too. “But even if you don’t remember my face, or my name, you can remember me, right?”

“Maybe,” Eddie tells him. “I think so. Maybe.”

“Ok,” Richie says. Eddie leans over and kisses him one more time.

“Eddie...,” he chokes, and Eddie wants him to say it, he needs him to tell him what he’s thinking.

“Bye,” Richie says, and he squeezes Eddie’s hand once, and then he’s gone.

Eddie turns off the record player. Keeps the light on and pulls the blankets up to his chin.

And he cries.

His mother rouses him bright and early to pack upand leave. He doesn’t see any of his friends before he does. He knows she would bitch about it if they came.

Instead, Eddie stays quiet as he loads his things into the moving van, not speaking unless absolutely necessary.

He cries when they back out of the driveway. He cries when he can’t see his house anymore. He cries when they pass over the Kissing Bridge, on their way out of town.

Eddie spots something he’s never seen before. A carving on the bridge. It doesn’t look fresh. It’s probably been there for a couple of years now. It’s fairly big but Eddie doesn’t come down here often, and when he does, he doesn’t usually look at the carvings.

_R + E_

It’s probably a coincidence. It stands for Ruth and Ernie, Robert and Ella, Rachel and Elijah. The carving stands for anything, any combination of names other than the one Eddie’s thinking of.

Because there’s no way the carving is what he thinks it is, even if he wants it to be. He’s fooling himself. Last night had been a fluke, they had both been drunk, and Richie was probably just experimenting with him. Just...messing around.

It’s not what he thinks.

Richie doesn’t like him. Richie hasn’t liked him for that long.

Eddie should just forget about it.

Eddie pulls out a pen and scribbles the letters on his arm. The same arm he’d broken during That Summer.

He stares at the letters until his eyes start to water. He stares at the letters until they’re etched into his brain. He stares at the letters until they mean nothing to him.

Who is R? Does the E stand for Eddie?

Why does it feel like Eddie’s left something important behind?

Weird.

New York isn’t bad.

Living with mom is, and Eddie’s slowly falling back into old habits. He uses his inhaler more and more, because he has asthma, and he needs it. He takes his pills routinely, because they help with his allergies. It means he won’t get sick.

He feels like he’s doing something wrong, every time he swallows a pill, every time he takes some cough syrup, even for just a small tickle in the back of his throat. Like he’s breaking a promise.

A promise to whom, he doesn’t know.

He makes a few friends at school. Smart, obedient friends, who always follow the rules, and are always polite. His mother loves them. Eddie feels for some reason, that this is a first.

He has his first kiss, with a girl from his literature class, during a game of spin the bottle. At least, he thinks it’s his first kiss. He feels like he might have done it before, but since he can’t think of a face to fit with the memory, he figures it must not be true.

Kissing the girl isn’t terrible. It just feels...boring. The movies always make it seem like it’ll be a huge deal. Like, you’ll feel fireworks, or something like that, and you’ll never want to stop.

All Eddie feels is slightly queasy, ‘cause her mouth tastes like a mixture of cheap beer and weed. And he doesn’t like it when she puts her tongue on his. It’s way too unsanitary for him.

He leaves the party feeling utterly unsatisfied by the whole thing, even though his friends say that he’s lucky, that she was hot, and they wish they could’ve kissed her, too.

Eddie just shrugs his shoulders, says, “It was ok,” and leaves it at that.

He knows he’s gay. That much he can remember. And he wishes that he weren’t.

He doesn’t tell anyone.

He goes through high school, through college, without ever kissing a boy.

He can remember a boy. Maybe. Not a name, not a face, not even a personality, but the traces of a boy. One who had made Eddie laugh, who had made Eddie mad, and who had been beautiful.

Eddie remembers a pair of glasses, and beyond that, not much else.

But he remembers other things too, fragments of other people. An old bicycle, flashing by like a silver streak. A bird encyclopedia, with pictures in it. A library card, faceless and nameless, but often used. A history book, history of a place unknown, but history nonetheless. A pack of Winston cigarettes, and Eddie doesn’t know why that’s significant to him, because all the smoke would make him cough.

Above all, that pair of glasses.

All of these objects hold a place in Eddie’s heart, although he doesn’t understand why. He often finds himself dreaming of them, or doodling little pictures of them in the margins of his notes during lectures.

“What’s that?” a nosy voice asks from behind his shoulder before one of said college lectures.

Eddie jumps and unconsciously moves his arm to cover the paper.

  
“Wha - What?” he asks, glancing up to see a girl with straight blonde hair and an unimpressed expression. She looks him up and down judgmentally, and Eddie suddenly feels very exposed.

“What were you drawing in your notes?” she asks. She looks like she’s not going to let Eddie get away with not answering her question.

“Oh,” Eddie says, glancing down at the page. He’d been drawing the bike, or something resembling it. It doesn’t look that good. Eddie’s not much of an artist.

“It’s a bicycle,” he says. The girl squints at it, leaning in closer to the paper.

“I _guess_ it looks like a bicycle,” she says. “Kind of.”

“Um,” Eddie says. “Thank you?”

“I’m Myra, Myra Palmer. Who are you?” she demands.

“Oh,” Eddie stutters. “I’m Eddie Kaspbrak.” He offers his hand to her. She stares it down with disdain.

“I don’t shake hands with people,” she sniffs. “It’s unclean. There could be all kinds of germs on that thing.”

_Mom would _love_ her._

“Oh,” Eddie says for a third time. “Sorry. You’re right.” He retracts his hand.

“Hm,” Myra says, and then: “Do you have asthma?”

Eddie blinks. “Uh, yeah. How could you tell?”

Myra grins triumphantly. “I have a sort of sixth sense for that sort of thing. You have an inhaler, right?”

Eddie produces it from his bag. She nods approvingly. “What about pills?” she asks. “Do you take pills?”

Eddie nods. “Three times a day.” He’s not sure if he really likes Myra all too much.

“How many times a day do you brush your teeth?” she asks, fixing him with a piercing stare.

“Once in the morning, once at night, and after every meal,” Eddie squeaks. He feels like a specimen being scrutinized under a microscope.

Myra stares at him for a few more seconds before grinning. “I _like_ you, Eddie Kaspbrak. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

“Thank you,” Eddie says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

And then: “Hey, let’s go out some time.”

Eddie blinks. “Out? Like, on a date?”

“Sure,” Myra says, fluttering her eyelashes a little. “If that’s what you’re looking for, Eds.”

He doesn’t want her to call him Eds. It feels wrong.

That’s also not what Eddie’s looking for.

But what _is_ he looking for?

And he also knows how pleased his mother would be if he brought a girl like Myra home, and she’s been crawling up his ass about getting a girlfriend, anyway. So...

“Uh,” Eddie says, feeling like he’s making a huge mistake. “Sure. We could do that.”

Myra straightens her spine. “Good. I think we’d make a good match.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, but his stomach is churning. “But, Myra?”

“Yes?”

“Can you not call me Eds? You can just call me Eddie, if you want.”

“Oh, alright,” Myra sighs. She pauses for a moment. “How about...Eddie-bear?”

And it is too similar to his mother, too close, too close.

“Ok,” Eddie says. “That’s fine.”

It isn’t.

He thinks maybe Myra will be a short fling. He’ll date her for a while, and then break up with her. Just to make his mother happy.

But then he’s going out with Myra again and again. And he’s taking her home to meet his mother (they get along famously). And he’s kissing her in the backseat of his car, even though there’s no fireworks, even though he doesn’t feel _anything._ And he’s celebrating their one-year anniversary, their two-year anniversary. And his mother is telling him to propose to her, and even though he doesn’t want to, Eddie is doing it, and Myra is saying yes.

It’s a poor decision. But it’s either marry Myra, or risk being found out. If Eddie has to marry a woman he doesn’t love to hide his secret, then that’s just how it will have to be.

Eddie and Myra are getting married in the city, and moving into their new apartment, and Myra is guiding Eddie into the bedroom on their wedding night, and Eddie doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to, but he does, and he wishes he could he say he enjoys it, but he doesn’t. Myra is proposing starting a business, and Eddie is agreeing. A risk analyst, who knew? Myra is obsessively cleaning the house, and making sure Eddie takes his pills, and brings his inhaler with him everywhere, and that he’s using the right shampoo, and that they’re sleeping on sheets with the correct thread count, and Eddie has never felt emptier.

He isn’t happy. He pretends to be, but he isn’t.

He feels _caged_. Like a bird, and that makes him think of the encyclopedia with the unknown owner.

They start to grow old together. Their company gets big enough that they make a good bit of money, save some of it away for a possible future child, though Myra can’t seem to get pregnant, and Eddie knows it’s his fault, somehow, he knows.

They keep trying, though.

Eddie _hates _it.

He’s looking for something to watch one night, while Myra dozes in the recliner, and he finds a Netflix comedy special. Something by some guy, Richie Tozier.

The name rings a bell. Eddie’s probably heard of him from a coworker or something.

He’s not usually one for stand-up comedy, but he feels compelled to watch the special anyway. It isn’t good. It’s literal shit. It’s unfunny, it feels unoriginal, like Tozier knows he can tell better jokes, but isn’t. The audience likes it, though, even if Eddie doesn’t. He only laughs once or twice.

He still watches the whole thing.

There has been something about Tozier...something familiar. Eddie doesn’t know what. He hadn’t been funny, but there’d been a quality to him that Eddie had recognized. He almost feels like he knows the guy.

Which is ridiculous, because Eddie wouldn’t be friends with someone so morbidly unfunny.

Richie Tozier is also stupidly attractive. Eddie doesn’t like that. He feels like Myra would disagree with him, but he’s not going to tell her that. He’s not going to tell her anything.

Maybe it’s the glasses.

The last thing Eddie thinks before he drifts off to sleep is:

_Those are the glasses I remember, aren’t they?_

Being back in Derry is...

Well, it’s a lot. And Eddie doesn’t want to be here, not at all.

Especially after all the memories come flooding back. After Eddie crashes his car, and he leaves Myra to go home. After jiggling his leg non-stop on the plane, anxious and terrified, though he hadn’t known why at the time. After the restaurant. After the fortune cookies. After his friends. Maybe that’s the only good part, seeing them.

Eddie remembers. He remembers Silver, Bill’s old bike. Mike’s _History of Derry _books, Ben’s library card, Bev’s cigarettes. Stanley’s encyclopedia, _oh God, Stanley, he’s fucking gone, oh God._

Richie’s glasses.

Richie.

Eddie remembers him. Not everything, and he’s not sure if he ever _will _remember everything.

But he remembers that he’d had a crush on Richie. He remembers that he’d been in love with Richie.

He realizes that he still is in love with him. He didn’t _stop._

For some reason, all he can think is: _What would Myra have to say about _that?

Probably nothing good.

“Richie,” he says, after Richie has opened the door to his motel room.

“Eds,” Richie says back. “What’s up?”

“Don’t call me Eds. Can I come in?”

“Always,” Richie replies, and it’s said softer than Eddie wants it to be.

Eddie sits on the bed and puts his head in his hands. He takes a deep breath.

“I’ve been thinking about - about - “

“Stan?” Richie asks, and Eddie nods.

Richie sinks down next to him, running his hands through his hair. “Yeah. Me too.”

“Were you crying before I came in?” Eddie asks, because Richie’s eyes look red.

“Yes,” he says, unashamedly.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “I was too.”

“I want to go home,” Richie says, voice thick. “I want to - I - _fuck. _I want to see Stan.”

“Me too. More than anything.”

But they’d made a promise. They can’t back out now.

“You really want to go home to your wife?” Richie asks, and his voice sounds colder.

Eddie frowns. “Yes. She’s my wife, why wouldn’t I?”

Richie huffs. “You don’t love her.”

“What the hell?” Eddie asks. “Yes, I do.”

Richie looks at him sadly. “You don’t have to pretend anymore, Eddie.” And the way he says Eddie’s name is so gentle, that Eddie thinks maybe he’s right.

But he isn’t.

“I’m not _pretending_ anything,” he snaps, standing up. “I’m in love with Myra. I’m _married_ to her.”

“Oh, really?” Richie says, and he’s angry now, too. “Because it doesn’t sound like you’re happy when you’re with her. In fact, I think it sounds like she’s smothering you, just like your mom used to.”

“I - ,” Eddie falters, because Richie had pretty much said it spot-on. “I’m not - She doesn’t - I...”

“_Eddie_,” Richie says. “It’s _ok._”

Eddie sits back down. “No. It’s not.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Richie asks, and he starts to rub Eddie’s back.

“Rich...I...”

“What is it, Eds?”

Eddie swallows. “You’ll hate me.”

Richie shakes his head, staring at Eddie intensely. “I could never hate you. Bill, maybe, but not you.”

Eddie laughs a little, but he can feel himself trembling. “I’m...I’m gay.”

Richie blinks, and Eddie thinks, _oh God, this is it. He’s going to kick me out, or yell at me, or -_

Richie exhales softly. He looks at his hands clasped in his lap. “Oh.”

Bile rises in Eddie’s throat and he swallows it down. “Sorry.”

“What are you apologizing for?” Richie asks incredulously.

“I...don’t know,” Eddie says truthfully.

“Have you ever told anyone that before?” Richie asks quietly. Eddie shakes his head.

“No. And I think I’m in too deep to do anything about it now.”

Richie cocks his head. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I’m _married,_ Richie. I have a wife, and a house, and a job, it’s...it’s too much.”

“Leave her,” Richie says simply.

“_What?_”

“Leave your wife.”

“I - I can’t just -,” Eddie splutters.

“Why not?”

Eddie can’t even answer that.

“If you don’t love her,” Richie says emphatically. “Then fucking _leave _her, Eds.”

“Rich,” Eddie murmurs.

Richie looks at him. “Yeah?”

“I...”

He what? What is he going to say?

_Eddie, what are you looking for?_

“I watched one of your comedy specials,” he blurts. “Before we all came back.”

Richie blinks. “You did?”

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know it was you, but I felt..._something, _and so I watched it.”

“What’d you think?” Richie asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“It was garbage,” Eddie says, and Richie barks out a laugh.

“Yeah,” he says, and it’s only now that Eddie realizes Richie’s hand still hasn’t left Eddie’s back. “It was, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I mean, you should _really _write your own material, dude. _Your _jokes are actually funny, their’s are...I don’t even _know._”

Richie grins. “You think my jokes are funny?”

Eddie realizes his mistake just a little too late. “What? _No. _You’re not funny, man. Your jokes _suck._”

He’s not convincing anyone. “He thinks I’m funny!” Richie sighs, fluttering his eyelashes and putting on a falsetto. “He really _does _love me!”

Eddie’s heart skips a beat at that.

Is this...should he...?

“Rich,” Eddie breathes, and suddenly the tone has changed.

“Yeah, Eds?” Richie asks. Eddie inches closer, as close as he dares.

“Beep-beep?” Eddie asks, but he’s really asking something else.

For permission.

Richie swallows.

And then he ducks down and kisses Eddie.

And it’s better than anything Eddie’s ever had before. Better than that girl in high school, better than _Myra _ever has been.

“_Eddie,_” Richie says, leaning back slightly. Eddie follows him, keeping his eyes trained on Richie’s lips.

“We’ve done this before,” Richie mumbles.

???

.

Oh God. They _have._

And Eddie remembers the drunken night that they’d had, before Eddie had gone away.

“Oh, right,” he says simply, and then he dips down and kisses Richie again, harder this time.

He doesn’t say I love you. He can’t. He’s still married, after all.

But he thinks that if he _did _say it, it might not be so bad.

He wakes up with a hangover, wearing nothing but his underwear. Richie’s snoring softly next to him.

He’s still wearing his stupid glasses.

Eddie takes them off and carefully sets them on the bedside table.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to say.

So he doesn’t.

He thinks that if his mother were still alive, she’d be incredibly disappointed in him.

Eddie thinks that’s a good thing.

It just might be a good thing.

There’s so much blood. Oh fuck, there is so much blood.

Eddie’s dying. He’s fucking dying. He’s dying in the _fucking_ sewers.

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

“Eds,” Richie’s sobbing, stripping off his jacket and putting pressure on the gaping wound in Eddie’s chest. “Oh God, _Eddie._”

“Rich,” he murmurs. The others are crowded around him, too, crying, sobbing.

“Eddie, you’re going to be ok,” Richie says. “You’re gonna be ok.”

“I have to tell you something,” Eddie rasps.

“What?”

He grins slightly, even though it hurts. Everything hurts. “I fucked your mother.”

“Shut _up,_” Richie says. “Shut up, Eddie, I fucked _your _mom.”

“I know,” Eddie says. Bev sobs from his right.

“Bev,” Eddie says. “Leave Tom, ok? Leave him. I’ve wasted my whole life on someone I didn’t love. Don’t do the same thing. You deserve better than that.”

“Eddie, I won’t,” she cries. “But you _haven’t_ wasted your life, ok? You’re going to be fine, you’ll be fine.”

Eddie shakes his head with as much strength as he can muster. “No,” he says. “I won’t be.”

And then the others leave. And it’s just Richie.

But it always has been.

“Rich,” he says again. “Have to tell you something.”

“I swear to Christ, Eddie, if it’s another your mom joke - “

“It’s not,” Eddie says. “‘S’important.”

“Ok,” Richie chokes.

Eddie breathes in. Breathes out.

“I’m in love with you,” he wheezes.

Richie sobs. “Eds, you’re just - “

“Shut _up_, Richie,” Eddie says. “I _am._”

Richie swallows. “How - How long?”

“Forever,” Eddie says. “I honestly think that I’ve been in love with you forever.” And it’s true.

“_Shit, _Eddie,” Richie says. “I - We - We could’ve had so much time.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, breathing shallow. “We missed out, we really did.”

“Eddie, I’ve been in love with you for...for...”

“I know,” Eddie tells him. “I know, Trashmouth.”

“_Fuck._”

“I just...just wanted you to know that,” Eddie says. “That there was no one else. Only you.”

Richie laughs and it comes out more like a sob. “Why me, Eddie? Why me?”

“_Because_, Rich. You’re _you._”

And he is. He’s stupid, and funny, and kind, and caring, and brave, and he helps Eddie be brave, and he’s too good for Eddie, too good.

Eddie remembers, _Find a girl, settle down._

(Ha.)

He’s just like his father. Derry-born, Derry-dead.

“Jesus Christ, _Jesus, Eddie._” Richie sounds like he’s choking on the words.

“Kiss me?” Eddie asks, and Richie does.

It tastes like salt and blood and dirt and somehow it’s better than every other kiss they’ve shared.

Maybe it’s because this will be Eddie’s last.

“Rich. I - I think I’m supposed to go to Stan, now.”

It hurts, it hurts so much.

“No, no, Eds, you’re not, _fuck, _you’re _not_, you’re not,” Richie says, all in one breath. “I _love _you, fuck, _I love you, Eds._”

“Richie, I told you,” Eddie says, using the last of his strength to slide his hand over Richie’s. “Don’t call me Eds. You know I...I...”

It hurts.

Eddie wants to -

Eddie wants -

He wants -

He -

He’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> don't look at me
> 
> also i feel like the quality of this drastically declines towards the end but idk algid;fljdlfhasfjd
> 
> ://////


End file.
